On the Road Again

Left California at 4am. The pictures didn't start until Vegas, and this was the first...

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Driving cross country always surprises me as to how much open land still exists out there.

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The have alpacas in Idaho. Who knew? This guy was across the road from our tent site at the KOA in Pocatello, Idaho. We had bought William a cheap little handcarved slingshot in Utah and he spent all afternoon collecting gravel to practice shooting the poor animal. (Don't worry, his rocks never made it more than four feet in front of him, but he was having such a blast I hadn't the heart to instruct him on the finer points of animal cruelty.)

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Driving through Montana - no matter which direction I looked, there were mountain ranges. Most of them had some form of snow at the peaks...in June, no less. I think if I had to, I could live in Montana. It was my  most favorite state to drive through on this route, hands down.

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We finally made it to the cabin! This is the view of the lake from our front porch...(looking to the left)

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(and then looking to the right...)

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My mother also rented a pontoon for the week. David has since told me that he now wants one. Some other activities there included:

fishing with cousin Lacey

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david's first attempt to clean a fish

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what's David without a guitar?

(sorry that it's sideways)

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waterskiing for the first time! (I refused after I watched David bite it in the face three times in a row, and then crawl back into the boat complaining how much his arm muscles hurt.)

 

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ogeling over my cousin's skill

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and tubing...where we bit it and flipped going 40 mph. I really never knew how much water, as a landing surface, hurts! Allow me to show you the following sequence of events....

Step 1: Get in the tube.

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Step 2: Find a comfortable position

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Step 3: Realize too late that falling into the bottom of the tube is not a good idea. Wait.

Realize that you're backwards. Husband pees his pants laughing at you.

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Step 4: Hit cruising altitude.

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Step 5: Hit turbulence and crash. (The big blob on top is David flying, the big blob on the bottom is me smashing into the water neck first).

Jamie T - Emily's Heart; Johnny Flynn - Hong Kong Cemetry; Newton Faulkner - Gone in the Morning; Paolo Nutini - White Lies (Actually, anything by Paolo is the shit) :)
Those are just to name a few of the great artists that can be found on this amazing site that I found. I really think you'd REALLY enjoy the artists found on the station that I'm always tuned in to. I'm gonna try to insert the link in here, hopefully it will work.
If it does, ENJOY! Oooh! And David Gray and Ray LaMontagne are goodies too! :) James Morrison and Laura Marling - Blackberry. I think you'll like that one. :)...too. ;)

http://www.last.fm/listen/artist/Paolo+Nutini/similarartists#pane=webRadioPlayer&station=%252Flisten%252Fartist%252FPaolo%252BNutini%252Fsimilarartists

Picture Time!

I love your cottage cheese ass. At least it was holding itself up. I can't say that for my own - but I'm working on it! I've been taking Sophia to the gym with me - i just set her down with the laptop and a movie and she's chill for about 45 minutes. I've noticed that's her time limit. After that she starts getting restless. There are other children in the gym as well, which is cool because I don't feel like a bad mother for bringing my daughter there too. Or at least, if I am, at least there are other mothers just like me who are willing to do what they have to do to get a little "me" time in.

And now it's time for a picture update!
The weekend before last we spent up in Pasadena, as Andrew had just graduated from high school.
This is Emma and her cousin sitting in the cathedral during the commencement ceremony (it was a private, christian, college preparatory school)....

This is Andrew with the younger niece and nephew...

Here's David with his "little" brother...

Here's me and my hubby...

And this next photo I took just for you because I actually brushed. my. hair.

This is Emma having fun playing volleyball during the last game of the season.

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Then just this past weekend, David made me lunch and I wanted to share it with you....

Oh my god, it was just that good.

and THIS is the girl who has a MEGA crush on William.
Her name is Daisy Willow, and she comes over every day to play with William.
When he's out playing with the boys, her heart is crushed. She follows him wherever she can.
Today I found them lying in his bed curled up together. He was reading and she was laying on his chest.
I delicately explained they were not allowed to be in bed together (as innocent as it was, it nearly broke my heart) and asked them to play downstairs or outside.
Perhaps they knew each other from a past life, who knows:)

Oy! So, here's a pic that i'll only put up on here. :) I look like a cross between a bucket of cottage cheese and an oompa loompa that stole Willy Wonka's sunglasses from the new version of the movie!

And the other one is just a really nice pic that Guy took with his iphone. :)

Enjoy! ;)

Love the taste of poison in the morning

Partly because I know you don't get news of much variety and partly because you mentioned wanting to buy organic and partly because I want to store this information in a manner that will ensure that I don't lose it - I am going to post this information I read in an article on CNN. (Here's the original link for my own reference:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/06/01/dirty.dozen.produce.pesticide/index.html?hpt=C1)

The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit group focused on public health. They scoured nearly 100,000 produce pesticide reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to determine what fruits and vegetables we eat have the highest, and lowest, amounts of chemical residue.

The group, a nonprofit focused on public health, scoured nearly 100,000 produce pesticide reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to determine what fruits and vegetables we eat have the highest, and lowest, amounts of chemical residue.

The group suggests limiting consumption of pesticides by purchasing organic for the 12 fruits and vegetables.


You can reduce your exposure to pesticides by up to 80 percent by buying the organic version of the Dirty Dozen. So without further ado, here they are:


The Dirty Dozen

Celery

Peaches

Strawberries

Apples

Domestic blueberries

Nectarines

Sweet bell peppers

Spinach, kale and collard greens

Cherries

Potatoes

Imported grapes

Lettuce



But never fear! Not all non-organic fruits and vegetables have a high pesticide level. Some produce has a strong outer layer that provides a defense against pesticide contamination. The group found a number of non-organic fruits and vegetables dubbed the "Clean 15" that contained little to no pesticides.
 
The Clean 15



Onions

Avocados

Sweet corn

Pineapples

Mango

Sweet peas

Asparagus

Kiwi fruit

Cabbage

Eggplant

Cantaloupe

Watermelon

Grapefruit

Sweet potatoes

Sweet onions


 
 
If you feel inclined to read what might seem to you like large amounts of text, I have included the rest of the article.
 
 
Can small amounts of pesticides hurt you?


The government says that consuming pesticides in low amounts doesn't harm you, but some studies show an association between pesticides and health problems such as cancer, attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder and nervous system disorders and say exposure could weaken immune systems.

The Environmental Working Group acknowledges that data from long-term studies aren't available but warns consumers of the potential dangers.

"Pesticides are designed to kill things. Why wait for 20 years to discover they are bad for us?" Rosenthal said.

Some doctors warn that children's growing brains are the most vulnerable to pesticides in food.

"A kid's brain goes through extraordinary development, and if pesticides get into the brain, it can cause damage," said Dr. Philip Landrigan, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.



Can pesticides be washed away?


Not necessarily. The pesticide tests mentioned above were conducted after the food had been power-washed by the USDA. Also, although some pesticides are found on the surface of foods, other pesticides may be taken up through the roots and into the plant and cannot be removed.

"We've found that washing doesn't do much," Rosenthal said. "Peeling can help, although you have to take into account that the pesticides are in the water, so they can be inside the fruit because of the soil."

All fresh produce, whether it's grown with or without pesticides, should be washed with water to remove dirt and potentially harmful bacteria. And health experts agree that when it comes to the Dirty Dozen list, choose organic if it's available.

"To the extent you can afford to do so, [parents] should simply buy organic, because there have been some very good studies that shows people who eat mostly organic food reduce 95 percent of pesticides [in their body] in two weeks," Landrigan said.



** On a side note, I will not rant and rave, but WHY I ask you, WHY are we as consumers so dispassionate about this? Why do we neglect and ignore the super powers we, as consumers, have? We drive the markets! There should be mass movements of outraged human beings taking matters into their own hands and growing their own food. I've taken a small step with my little container garden and it consoles me to a degree, but not nearly enough. Now to get the growth hormones out of our milk and antibiotics out of our meat!